


How You've Grown

by somihomie



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25836001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somihomie/pseuds/somihomie
Summary: At a drinking party with her close friends that she barely got to see anymore,  between her busy life as the director of the village hospital and a single mother, Sakura is glad to see everyone doing so well. And she takes this moment to reminisce on her life, and her best friend, and how far he'd come from the loud mouth knuckleheaded ninja — to becoming the seventh Hokage.





	How You've Grown

Hair strung together as if weaved from gold, eyes sparkling clear as if they were crystalized by ocean water, and a smile that shines brighter than a summer sun. She didn’t have to say his name, because with his loud mouth and the way he stuck out like a sore thumb, it was already obvious who she was talking about. But after so many years of knowing him, he has changed. He was so much more than just an idiot with big dreams, who was all bark and no bite. He is the embodiment of charisma and kindness, affection and empathy, strong-willed and resilience, compassionate and understanding. He knew his path, and worked harder than anyone else to be able to achieve it. He became the Seventh Hokage. 

_ ‘Oh, how you’ve grown.’ _

Staring at the side profile of her closest and dearest friend, she watched him in bemused wonder as he laughed along to something one of their other friends said at the table, clinking glasses of beer canisters together. How can someone who had gone through so much pain and struggle be able to smile as genuinely as he did? How is he able to make peace with all the misfortune he faced in his life? How can he wake up and be so optimistically hopeful for the day ahead of him -- for the future that he will single handedly carve out for himself, and everyone else around him. How he carried the burdens of his own hardships and responsibilities, and of all those around him? 

He doesn’t even realize all that he has done for everyone around him. How everyone has hope, and lives peacefully, just because of his love and protection for the people of the village. A village that used to hate and scorn him for being a potential threat -- a mob mindset that she used to be a part of. She could blame her youth, as she was young and naive, but that doesn’t explain how he could still stand being around her for so many years without getting fed up with her. Thinking back on that time, she was fed up with herself at the mere thought at the disgusting things she said and did to him back then. 

But he was so pure. She knows he could never grow to hate her -- resent her for all that she had done to him. Is it that fact that she is still by his side, taking advantage of his inability to harbor any hateful feelings towards her?

No, that was wrong. They shared a bond -- a bond closer than merely being friends, even family. Naruto was able to create his family by choosing the people around him, but after everything they went through together, they were connected by a shared fate. By souls. No matter what happens to them, or where they go in life, they will always find themselves back to each other. 

It is not love. Not the romantic kind, anyways. It is a shared destiny. Some people that you meet in your life, even though you don’t realize it at first, will become so important in it that your fates are entangled within each other. It would take more work to straighten out the strings of fate then to just ride it out alongside the other person. And in this kind of world, the most friends you have by your side that you can absolutely trust with your whole soul, the better. 

He had those kinds of people around him, like Shikamaru, and Hinata -- Sasuke, regardless of his absence at this particular event. It was boisterous of herself to include her own name in that list, as if she could speak for him, but she believed it in her heart that as much as an asset he was in her life, she was to him as well. He just mattered so much to her, so much so that he would never know it. 

_ ‘I’m so sorry.’ _

As if he could hear her thoughts about him, he turned his focus to her, giving her a questioning look. To which, she simply smiled, holding her drink up to him to reassure him that she was alright, and having a good time as well. And then he smiled, that genuine smile that melts away all your worries and makes you forget that the world was full of anything less than the goodness he projected from his person -- not even needing words to vocalize his pure intentions. He turned back to the conversation happening next to him, and she allowed a softness and warmth to overtake her expression that she usually guarded off from others, reserving it for her daughter alone on most occasions.

_ ‘I’m so proud of you.’ _


End file.
